Amazon Apocalypse Short: In Pursuit of Forbidden Knowledge

Long Ago in the Arcadia Multiverse...

Jai Mei felt a chill running through her body despite the sun beating on her back and head. It was in the full heat of summer, and when winter came her condition would only worsen.

When her cultivation talent was tested, her spiritual roots were so powerful and so strong that her local sect needed to bring in a Nascent Soul expert just to test her aptitude. His words run in her ears to this day.

"You possess the rare Extreme Yin Physique. Your power is profound and will grow by the day, but is uncontrollable. Without a cultivation partner who possesses an Extreme Yang Physique, you will surely die before your thirtieth birthday, no matter what realm of cultivation you reach. Our sect cannot accept you."

And with that, she was turned away.

Knowing of her condition, she was able to infiltrate several smaller sects without a knowledgeable Nascent Soul expert, and using them was able to achieve Foundation Establishment, and eventually Core Formation.

But as that elder said long ago, no matter what realm of cultivation she reached, her death was assured. Even now, she could feel herself growing colder. Someday, she would be as frigid as the coldest night of winter. On that day, she would enter a deep sleep from which she'd never awaken.

Given her current condition, she suspected this would be her last summer. Once the heat and sun waned and the yang energy in the air decreased, she would perish. Her only hope was that she could stumble across a man with a physique opposite to her own.

Except she had already combed the lands in her search and found no one. Her only hope now lay beyond the world she grew up on. And for that reason she'd gone in search of the stranger.

He bore a strange name and came from an even stranger land. His name was Chris Smith, and he called himself a Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge. He'd arrived on her world to study the mortals. Perhaps with the knowledge of foreign lands, he could help her cure her condition.

She found him sitting atop a mountain, which was a common enough place for cultivators to meditate. But instead of meditating, this man was holding a peculiar jade recording crystal, which clicked and rendered flawless images onto paper. It was a curious, if pointless device.

"I come seeking the outlander known as Chris Smith. Are you him?" Jai Mei asked.

"Huh?" Chris blinked, then froze. Jai Mei sighed and let his eyes roam her. A side effect of her Extreme Yin Physique was a perfect and flawless beauty that no natural born woman could compare to. She was used to the lusty gazes of every man she met.

"I'm told you come from beyond our world, Chris Smith," Jai Mei said.

Chris regained his composure faster than most. "I suppose you could say that. You're quite isolated out here, you know. I had to come by ship. This is a remarkable world you've got. Your civilization is largely feudal and has been scientifically stagnant for tens of thousands of years. I'm photographing the nearby village for historical preservation purposes. The System's going to be expanding to this world in a few years, and I want to compare the before and after changes for my thesis."

Jai Mei blinked, not understanding most of what he said. Instead, she launched into the speech she'd prepared.

"I've come to recruit your assistance, Chris Smith. You see, I suffer from an extremely rare Extreme Yin Physique, and there is no male of the Extreme Yang Physique on this world to cure me. Untreated, I will surely die. You clearly have access to other worlds, and I wish to gain your assistance in exploring them so I can search for a cure," Jai Mei said.

Chris lifted two pieces of glass on a wire frame from off his face as he stared at Jai Mei. He bent to one knee and soon examined her core.

"Oh yeah! You do have one of those extreme cultivation physiques. Neat! This would actually make a much better thesis for me!" Chris seemed suddenly excited, which was a first for Jai Mei. Most people treated her poorly after learning of her condition. Favors done to a dying woman would be worthless after she was gone.

"If you assist me, I will hold nothing back to assist you in any ways you need." Jai Mei stepped forward, leaning down as she loosened her robes. That always helped sweeten the deal.

"Deal!" Chris and Jai Mei shook hands.

***

From then on Chris and Jai Mei were inseparable. The two of them rode in his metal ship from world to world, though Chris' interest in mortal villages had waned ever since he switched the focus of his studies to Jai Mei.

Jai Mei found Chris Smith was a gifted researcher with many strange talents. He had a peculiar way of thinking he called the scientific method. At its heart, it was merely a process of reason and deduction, but Jai Mei still found it fascinating.

Chris examined her blood, heart rate, and wrote down all manner of observations as they traveled. One day, he seemed suddenly shy about his research.

"Uhm... I don't want to be pushy, but..." Chris began while awkwardly adjusting the pieces of glass on his face Jai Mei had come to learn were merely called glasses.

"Speak, Chris Smith. I promised to aid you in your research however you required." Jai Mei crossed her arms.

"It's just that... well... I would be able to examine your spirit roots better if your clothes weren't in the way. That's all." Chris drummed his fingers together innocently.

"Ah, is that all?" Jai Mei quickly disrobed.

Chris' cheeks flushed, but only for a moment. An instant later he was on one knee staring at her pelvis.

"Now this is fascinating!" Chris said.

"I imagined you'd find it so..." Jai Mei said, but to her surprise she found him looking more than skin deep. He really was examining her spirit roots.

"It looks like instead of the normal five element spirit roots, you've only got wind and water spirit roots. And all of them are aspected to only absorb cold-aspect mana! You must have inherited a combination of extremely rare recessive traits. The heterozygous form of the genes are probably beneficial to cultivation talent, and only turn detrimental when homozygous..." Chris muttered as he stared at her naked body.

Jai Mei stood calmly. It was a bit awkward, but she'd grown comfortable with Chris during her travels.

These examinations reoccurred each day. Chris recorded the deterioration of her body in meticulous detail. All the while, they used her remaining time and Chris' ship to traverse the stars and visit world after world in search of a man with an Extreme Yang Physique.

Just when she feared her search was going to come to an end, Jai Mei finally found hints of just such an individual.

"Sure, there's a young man whose name has spread across the heavens lately! He's young, but at Qi Condensation he could slaughter Foundation Establishment! At Foundation Establishment he destroyed a clan with a Core Formation elder! And now that he's at Core Formation, he's hunting down Nascent Soul experts left and right! They say all the major clans have gone into hiding for fear they'll be destroyed in his never-ending rampages."

The speaker was a low-ranked cultivator of some minor sect. Jai Mei had not expected to receive good news, but when she had she could hardly believe it. The heavens had eyes and her lucky encounter was finally here!

"Where is he?" Jai Mei asked. The man merely pointed, and Jai Mei rushed off. Chris followed close behind. She'd learned his cultivation technique was very strange and he hardly seemed to meditate at all, but he could keep up with her just fine.

"So you need this guy to stabilize your spiritual roots, according to your world's oral medical traditions?" Chris asked as he ran.

"Yes. The only way to suppress the negative effects of an Extreme Yin Physique is to dual cultivate with an Extreme Yang Physique," Jai Mei explained. She'd explained herself before, but Chris was always suspicious of the ancient cultivation traditions her world cherished and insisted on frequent explanations on some topics.

"Well, I think that's him." Chris pointed in the direction of a massive battle up ahead.

It was clear to any with eyes to see that two unfathomable experts were battling in the heavens, both young men.

"I, Yan Tiandao, have never submitted to the heavens! I was born with the Extreme Yang Physique and have slaughtered my way across this world in pursuit of immortality! Your sect from beyond the stars is nothing to me!" shouted a man.

"Backwater barbarian!" shouted the other young man. "I am Meng Mengyao, of the Meng Clan! My family owns this whole world, and a hundred others besides it! I am merely here to temper myself. Cripple yourself and kowtow a hundred times and perhaps I'll leave your corpse intact."

The fighting began in earnest then, with fireballs flying and fists soaring. Chris and Jai Mei could only watch, though Jai Mei was anxious. If Yan Tiandao died, so too would any hope of a future for her.

"Damn, these guys are really going at it, huh?" Chris lifted his peculiar recording device again and took a picture.

"This is clearly a battle between supreme chosen of the heavens. Both have power far beyond the norm for Core Formation. I doubt I could defeat either of them," Jai Mei admitted.

"Neither of these guys are the sort I'd want as a coworker." Chris shook his head and pulled out a notepad to add some words to his pictures.

The battle continued for some time, but eventually Yan Tiandao was victorious.

"Wait! Wait! My father will reward you handsomely if you spare my life!" begged a crippled Meng Mengyao.

"As if. I don't leave problems to fester. I tear them out by the roots!" Yan Tiandao stomped on Meng Mengyao's head, crushing it to paste in a final definitive move. His chest heaved and blood poured from his heavy wounds, but he'd survived.

Jai Mei decided it was time to introduce herself.

"Congratulations on your victory, Young Master Yan. I am Jai Mei," Jai Mei said as she descended.

"Ah, I see this week's jade beauty has arrived for me," Yan Tiandao laughed as he wiped blood from his hands.

But before Jai Mei could approach any closer, a terrible voice rang out from the sky.

"Backwater barbarian! How dare you slay my son! I am Meng Weisheng, and you shall perish for your temerity!" shouted a profound and powerful voice from the sky. A huge head formed in the clouds, followed by an enormous palm strike.

The palm strike struck Yan Tiandao and left a huge print in the earth. Then the earth cracked and splintered before breaking apart completely.

"Get in the ship!" Chris warned Jai Mei. He scooped her up and climbed aboard. They took to the air just as the ground burst apart and molten magma split open and started pouring out of the ground. Soon, the whole world was breaking out in magma flows. That enormous palm strike had shattered the planet's crust and rendered the entire thing uninhabitable, killing every living thing on the planet that wasn't already a high-ranking cultivator.

Hours later, Jai Mei felt true despair. She'd found the objective behind her long search only to watch him die in front of her. The heavens truly hated her.

"Hey, what exactly were you going to do with that guy anyway?" Chris asked Jai Mei.

"I needed to dual cultivate with him to suppress the effects of my Extreme Yin Physique," Jai Mei replied. It was more of a grumble than normal words.

"But what does that mean?" Chris asked.

"Well... sex. It means we circulate energy while having sex. Passing my yin energy through his body would stabilize him, while passing his yang energy through my body would stabilize me," Jai Mei explained.

Chris removed his glasses again. "You were going to sleep with that guy? Granted, I only heard what he was shouting in battle and a few rumors from the locals, but I'm pretty sure he was a mass murderer who'd exterminated entire clans at once. You saw his whole thing about tearing out problems by the roots."

"The path for every cultivator is different," Jai Mei replied uncertainly. "Besides, cultivators with exceptional yang energy tend to be more violent."

"I think that's got as much validity as astrological signs. Come on, you could do better than him." Chris scoffed.

"I'm literally dying," Jai Mei reminded him.

Chris scratched his chin in thought. "Alright, what if I told you I knew a way to simulate this yang energy? It's just mana aspects associated with heat, uncontaminated by any associated with cold. I can make that happen with some of my tools."

"You can... what?" Jai Mei said, blinking in surprise. She'd been traveling with Chris for months in search for a cure for her condition, and suddenly he mentioned he had an alternative cure all along!

"Sure." Chris shrugged.

***

Hours later, Jai Mei found herself naked and laying on a medical table aboard Chris' ship. She would have felt quite vulnerable under other circumstances, but in this one she could only feel her heart beat faster with anticipation. The cold in her body had grown stronger as of late and she could feel herself slowly turning to ice from the inside out. This was perhaps her last chance at a cure.

"Hold still!" Chris said as he pressed a warm rod of yang mana he'd manufactured with his peculiar Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge abilities against her abdomen.

Jai Mei felt warmth spread throughout her pelvis, but it reached no further.

"It's not powerful enough. You need to reach my spirit roots and my core!" Jai Mei said.

Chris materialized several more warm yang rods and pressed those against her body. He even had her sucking on one, which she took all the way down to the base. But it was no use.

"It's still not enough," Jai Mei protested.

Chris shook his head as though he couldn't believe what was happening.

"Alright, since you're literally asking for it..." he stuck his warm yang rods in her mouth and her ass at the same time, which finally started seeing some real progress. But despite Chris' best efforts, he just couldn't push enough yang energy into Jai Mei's body using those spells.

"I can feel it working. You really can simulate an Extreme Yang Physique, Chris. But the only way to circulate enough yang energy through me requires greater physical contact. I need you inside me!" Jai Mei begged.

Chris sighed as he unzipped his pants. "Ah, the things I do for forbidden knowledge!"

...the end!

<Note>

And that's why it's called the Scholar of Forbidden Knowledge class! Maybe Carter wasted all his time on all that void magic stuff, thinking that's what made it forbidden. It was forbidden because it belongs in the adults only section.

It's nice to free myself creatively every once in a while. Sometimes I have a story that wants to come out and it can pop onto the page in just three hours. Meanwhile I spent like eight hours on chapter 20 and ended up barely writing anything I liked. Oh well, some things are easy, some things aren't!

Early on in the series I wanted to have Carter go to the Eternal Spring Sect. It would have been a whole book pretty much like this chapter. Sadly, it ended up not working out. Maybe in a future book, assuming you guys like this kind of thing? (Normal guy shaking his head at crazy cultivator antics? Interspersed with extremely necessary magical sexy time?)

Anyway, that's all I have for today. I hope to have a real chapter of Amazon Apocalypse 7 tomorrow. If not then, definitely Monday. Then break for edits. Maybe I can put out another short or two to fill the void, if you guys have any ideas.